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“In the Middle East one thing you learn is that things can always get worse. Imagine how much worse they would be if Israel and Egypt were still in a state of war.”

Lawrence Wright

author of Thirteen Days in September

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter corralled the hostile leaders of Israel and Egypt, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, in a wooded, isolated Maryland retreat dubbed “Shangri-La” by Franklin Roosevelt.

There Carter hoped to diplomatically massage them into an unprecedented Middle East peace settlement. Instead the three were locked in an operatic 13-day struggle that drove each man to the edge of sanity, and came close to a disastrous breakdown in international relations.

But, in the end, Carter emerged with a “diplomatic miracle” that created a lasting accord between Israel and its most powerful Arab neighbour, with recognition of Israel by Egypt and the end of Jewish settlements in the Sinai Peninsula.

In his new book Thirteen Days in September, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright took a deep dive into the Camp David Accords through interviews with Carter, surviving members of the Egyptian and Israeli teams, historical records and hitherto unpublished accounts. In Toronto recently he talked to the Star about the birth of the treaty, and of the book. (The interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

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What persuaded you to tackle this fraught subject, which is controversial even today?

Jimmy Carter’s adviser, Gerald Rafshoon (pdf), called me in 2011 and asked me to write a play about Camp David. His pitch was “when a born-again Christian, an orthodox Jew and a pious Muslim go behind closed doors for 13 days and emerge with the only durable treaty in the Middle East” it must be worth doing.

I’d lived in Atlanta when Carter was governor and ran for president. I lived in Cairo when Sadat was president and as a reporter had worked in Israel, so it felt like familiar territory. I thought it was a good opportunity to examine the roots of this conflict, so I agreed. As I was writing the play I saw opportunities for the book.

The setting was 1978, just five years after a second bloody war between Israel and Egypt. What were the stakes for each of the players?

Carter intended to gain a comprehensive peace treaty for the Middle East. He told me that he was put in office to achieve peace in the Holy Land. He was driven by considerations beyond politics.

Sadat, when he came to Camp David, didn’t really believe Begin would make peace, but he did hope for a closer relationship with America. At least America and Egypt would become firm friends to the point of placing Egypt as America’s chief ally in the region.

Begin came not intending to stay more than three or four days. He thought they might set some talks in motion, and he could easily walk away. That proved a mistake.

To what extent was Carter’s mediation vital to the outcome?

In an abstract way each man wanted peace. Carter had the mistaken idea that if he could just put them in a room together behind closed doors they’d get to know each other, develop trust and find their own way to peace. He’d be like a camp counsellor.

But instead they were screaming at each other. Carter had to physically separate them. They couldn’t make peace with each other, so he had to do something he didn’t want to do. On the fifth day, he put forward an American plan. That was a critical moment. What it did was place those countries’ relationships with the U.S. in the balance.

In spite of his success, Carter has been slammed by all sides. Does he deserve better?

He’s despised by a number of American Jews. But I don’t know any president who gave Israel anything greater than peace with Egypt. And it couldn’t be accomplished without him. I went into the book with the same historic lens — that he was a weak and unpopular president. But the man I wrote about at Camp David was extraordinary. All those men exceeded their own limitations.

The book is a nail-biter in spite of its well-known ending. The emotional toll for all concerned was astonishing. They were euphoric, they were despairing, they fought bitterly among themselves and they threatened to leave. How did you get a handle on the inside struggles?

Rosalynn Carter lent me her diary. I had read that she kept a diary of 200 typewritten pages. I asked her if I could have a look at it and she just said “it’s around here somewhere.” So I called Rafshoon, and a week later this manila envelope turned up. The diary helped me chart an emotional course through those tumultuous days. I highlighted the useful parts and made marginal notes. But who would have thought it was her only copy! I had to write a very apologetic letter for marking up her diary.

What role did Rosalynn play in the accords?

She was always Carter’s closest adviser. They have known each other for almost a century — she was born in the house next door to him, and they still have this very vital relationship. Camp David was her idea. In some ways she’s the unacknowledged author of the Camp David Accords.

After all the travails, what did Israel and Egypt gain and lose from the deal?

For Sadat, he wanted a comprehensive peace plan that included the Palestinians. He was very worried about the appearance that Egypt had made a separate peace. But that is what happened. The accord has a second part that spells out a pathway to Palestinian self-determination but has never been enacted. And the Arab world did turn its back on Egypt.

But what he got was very substantial: he got Sinai, with no more Israeli settlements there.

For Begin it was a huge sacrifice. He had spent his whole career trying to expand the zone of safety for Jews. Nobody in his delegation imagined he’d go to Camp David and surrender a single millimetre of Sinai or any part of Israel. In spite of the animosity between them, Carter said that Begin was the one who made the biggest sacrifice.

What do you think would have happened if the deal had failed?

Sadat told Carter there would be another war. In the Middle East one thing you learn is that things can always get worse. Imagine how much worse they would be if Israel and Egypt were still in a state of war.

Why has this deal endured when others have fallen apart?

It was a carefully wrought treaty, and every comma was fought over. As unloved as the treaty was — they call it the Cold Peace for a reason — I think both sides realize how bad the alternative could be. In spite of all the turmoil that has gone on in Egypt, the treaty was never called into question. Egypt and Israel have never been as close as they are today.

More than a quarter of a century later America is still trying to make peace in the Middle East. Given the ongoing bitterness and frustration should it keep trying?

They don’t do a good job of making peace by themselves. The Americans and Europeans have tried to solve the problem. But there are so many enemies of peace, people who have an investment in the status quo. When there’s an optimistic moment you’ll find a terrorist outbreak or an invasion.

Now the language in the region has drifted so far toward extremism, and people don’t know each other any more. Twenty-five years ago you could drive from Gaza to the Golan Heights without any checkpoints. One hundred thousand Gazans were going to work each day in Israel and 200,000 from the West Bank. Israelis went to Gaza for seafood. That kind of interaction has been taken off the table. It’s very difficult to make peace if you don’t know the other side.

Does Camp David offer any hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace even now?

We all have this feeling that Jews and Arabs are eternal enemies. Yet Camp David proves it’s not true . . . A less likely cast of characters you can’t imagine to make peace. But they were all very courageous men, willing to take risks for peace.

It is true that the opportunity for a two-state solution is diminishing. But it may be time for alternatives.

I’m the same age as Israel — I was born when the UN partitioned mandated Palestine into a state for Jews and for Arabs. In my lifetime I grew up in the segregated south, yet we have a black president. I grew up in the apartheid era and it’s long gone. There was the Cold War, but then the Soviet Union dissolved. These are all immutable facts, but they’ve changed.

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